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Robert Gates says 'we have trouble coming up with proof of any civilian casualties.' AP PhotoClose

Defense Secretary Robert Gates talked about the Libya situation on Sunday morning TV. This statement was made on "Face the Nation" as part of a discussion about casualties caused by the international intervention:

"The truth of the matter is we have trouble coming up with proof of any civilian casualties that we have been responsible for. But we do have a lot of intelligence reporting about Qadhafi taking the bodies of the people he’s killed and putting them at the sites where we’ve attacked. We have been extremely careful in this military effort, and not just our pilots but the pilots of the other coalition air forces have really done an extraordinary job.”

This comment by Gates came on "This Week" as to whether Libya was a vital interest to our country:

"It was not a vital national interest to the United States, but it was an interest: … the engagement of the Arabs, the engagement of the Europeans, the general humanitarian question that was at stake … You had a potentially significantly destabilizing event taking place in Libya that put at risk potentially the revolutions in both Tunisia and Egypt.”